A Beating from the Headmaster
by Loveedith
Summary: Edith and Anthony starting out on their honeymoon. One-shot.


"Yesterday, when I was waiting for you in church, I heard your grandmother say that I looked like I was waiting for a beating from the headmaster", Sir Anthony told Lady Edith on the train to London the next morning. He wanted to tell her this, because he wanted to explain to her what had happened to him during his childhood.

But he knew he would never tell Edith about the cruel remarks her grandmother had made about his late wife. That was something he wanted to spare his young wife.

Edith blushed. It was embarrassing that her husband should have overheard something like that from her Granny.

"I love Granny, but she sometimes says the most terrible things", she told him with a shy smile.

"But she was right, you see. It was exactly how I felt. And I am very familiar with that feeling, sadly enough. I wonder how she knows about such things. And I wonder how she could know how I was feeling."

"You are really not all that hard to read", she answered with a soft smile. "How else could I have known that you love me, when you didn't want to tell me?"

He was holding his good arm around Edith's shoulders - his wife's shoulders - feeling more happy than he had ever expected to do again. Life was strange. And life was so much better because this wonderful but also a bit strange young woman had decided that she should have him as her husband. And hadn't accepted any objections to that. From him or from anyone else.

And he had given in to her. He had struggled against her, but finally he had given in.

Probably that was the right thing for him to do in the future - give in to her. Let her have her way. Because she had so obviously been right. And he could really feel now that he was making her happy. And that was the strangest thing of all.

"I love you Edith", he said softly. "From now on I will keep telling you that."

...

She had been all excitement and all eagerness when they had made love for the first time early that morning. Big warm eyes, urgency and brazen curiosity. And he had felt - well almost - like a young lover. A lover her own age, worthy of being with her, worthy of making love to her. And able to satisfy her, making her moan and wriggle under his kisses and caresses. Her heavy breathing had been music to his ears.

And when he finally got inside her, it had been so easy and natural. She had a smile in the fog at the back of her eyes, and a look of marvel at the new sensation. And she had only let out one very soft moan when he pressed into her. It didn't look like he had hurt her at all, only aroused her still further. And he had been so thankful, before he loosed himself to the sensation of her.

And she didn't seem to mind at all that he had fallen asleep with his arm around her, almost as soon as they were finished. He had been so exhausted.

When he woke up again she was all smiles and kisses.

He was happy. Happy in a languorous, indolent way. But more important, even to his own happiness, was that _she_ was so obviously happy too.

...

"I was beaten a lot when I first came to school, you see", he continued his narrative, feeling he wanted to share this terrible end of his happy childhood with her.

"Most boys go to boarding school when they are some years younger than I was. All the boys in my class had already been to school for some years. But I got my first teaching from my mother, so I didn't have to start until a little later. And my parents didn't want to send me away before I was a bit older. My mother had taught all my uncles their first years also, so they didn't have to be sent home from India when they were still small. She was a really good teacher. But at school they all wanted to find faults with my mother's teaching. Because she was a woman, I guess. But she was really much better than many of the teachers there. Especially in mathematics. It was her one great interest, she spent a lot of time learning that before she got married to my father and had Emilia and then me."

Edith was glad that he told her a little about his childhood. She realized she hadn't been born at the time, but she was still happy to get to know some more about the boy he had once been.

"But maybe it had been easier for me to adjust, if I had started school earlier. I think I got beaten more often than any other boy in that class, because I just couldn't adjust."

He sighed and looked at her. And he saw that she was listening carefully.

"The first beating I got was for writing with my left hand", he continued. "I am left-handed by nature, as you know, and my mother had let me use that hand when I learnt to write. Probably because I refused to use the other one. Maybe she found it best to let me have my way, or I mightn't have wanted to write at all. I was a very stubborn little boy."

"You still are", Edith said with a soft smile. "Well, maybe not such a little boy. But stubborn."

"Well, my sweet one, I don't really know if you are the right person to complain about stubbornness. Anyway, left-handed writing was considered all wrong in school. So within a day from my arrival at school, I was sent for a beating by the headmaster for the first time in my life. Because I flatly refused to change hands. As I said, I was stubborn."

He stopped for a moment before he continued.

"It was terrible. First I had to sit all alone in a room, listening to another boy being beaten in the room next door. I think they did that on purpose, sending boys there one at the time, but in time to hear the cries from the boy before him. And also the sounds of the whipping. They want you to wait, and they want you to wait in fear."

He took a quick look at Edith. She seemed horrified.

"Then I was sent in to the headmaster, and forced to bend down over a bench while he hit me as hard as he could with his rod. There were different numbers of whips for different offences. This first time I was only whipped two times. But for more than a week I refused to change hands, and I got an extra whip for every new day. When I finally gave in, I had had some fifty whips in all. I wasn't able to sit down, I couldn't sleep on my back. And even after that my stubbornness got me beaten almost every week for many years."

"Oh, that's terrible!" Edith had tears in her eyes. "Poor little Anthony! But I think you were very brave. You must have known you were going to loose in the end."

"Maybe I knew that. But I thought that what was good enough for my mother was good enough for those stupid, violent people. I didn't give up until I started to fear he was going to beat me to death. Because he didn't seem to care at all that I staggered out from his room. I could hardly walk any longer."

Anthony heaved a sigh.

"So you see, I know all about waiting for a beating by the headmaster", he said with a bitter grin. "My parents never hit me. Never ever. I had such a happy childhood. I was totally unprepared for all that brutality. I can't understand how a grown up man can find pleasure in beating a young boy. But I'm sure my headmaster did. There was always a satisfied smile on his face, especially if he had managed to make you cry or bleed. He was definitely a man who had found his vocation."

"I'm glad I only had governesses", Edith said softly.

"Spare the rod and you spoil the child, they say. But I think you really destroy children by _using_ the rod. Nothing good comes from violence. Ever."

...

Later in the evening, they were alone in their hotel room. Anthony held Edith close to him with his good arm, placing soft kisses at the hair on the top of her head.

"You don't have...regrets...about marrying me...?" he heard Edith mumble with a very small voice.

"Oh, how could I regret? After what happened this morning? That would be too much to ask. I still don't feel worthy of you, though. But I have decided you only have yourself to blame."

"Good! And if you feel up to it I would like very much to do a little more of those things I only have myself to blame for. If you are not too tired of course!"

...

AN: Thank you for reading!

This is a one-shot for now.

And I very much agree with Sir Anthony. Nothing good comes from beating someone who is smaller than you!

I think I must thank Julian Fellowes for this. Without Lady Violet's remark in 3:3, I would never have got the idea to write this.


End file.
